


Parachute

by RockSaltAndRoll



Category: Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: M/M, Murder, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-22
Updated: 2013-03-20
Packaged: 2017-11-19 07:08:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 14,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/570577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RockSaltAndRoll/pseuds/RockSaltAndRoll
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His mission had been to fly to Cuba and tail the suspected head of a drug cartel. Normally a cut-and-dry mission, but Bond had discovered in the last few days that, not only did this man run a massive drugs ring, but he had information on all the major drugs cartels in the world. Names, places, dates, all stored on one little laptop. To retrieve this information, Bond needed an expert. In short, he needed Q. Needless to say, the young Quartermaster was less than enamoured at the prospect of leaving his nice little office at Vauxhall Cross and flying to Havana to face heavily armed drug barons.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I actually have no fucking clue what this is all about.
> 
> It’s my attempt at a small multi-chapter 00Q fic. Not my best writing, it feels very out of character for half of it and the pacing is fucked, but what the hell.
> 
> Also, it may take a few days for me to update a new chapter. Just so you know.
> 
> Title taken from 'Parachute' by Ingrid Michaelson.

Bond braced himself for the blow he’d known was coming but didn’t flinch as the meaty fist caught him directly in the jaw. If it hadn’t have been for the fact that it hurt like hell, he would have grinned because the idiot had left himself wide open to Bond’s retaliating punch to his ribs. The would-be assassin doubled over, receiving Bond’s knee to his face before being kicked away and to the floor.

Alleyways in Havana were not, it seemed, good ideas for shortcuts. Which Bond probably would have known, had Q been around to guide him through the city.

His opponent rolled a few times then sprung to his feet like a Jack-in-the-box, wiping blood from his mouth with his left hand. His right hand now held a six-inch blade where there had been none before. Now, Bond was wary. He’d have to step twice as fast now that a sharp weapon had been introduced into the fight. The man lunged for him and Bond side-stepped neatly, grasping the knife-wielding arm and spinning him about before placing a well-aimed elbow strike between his shoulder blades. The assassin yelped in pain and collapsed to his knees under the weight of the blow, but still kept his grip on the knife.

Before Bond could even contemplate his next move, the other man rolled onto his back and slashed upwards, catching him across the belly. Bond hissed at the sharp sensation but had enough wits to aim a kick at the assassin’s hand, catching him full on and sending the blade flying. The man was as slippery as an eel, using the temporary distraction of Bond’s wound to wriggle to his feet again and charge.

Both men went sprawling in a flurry of grappling hands and flailing legs, each fighting to get the upper hand over the other. In the end, it was Bond’s heavier build that won him the day, using every ounce of strength he had to haul the assassin to his knees and wrap a thick arm around his neck. It only took a few pounds of pressure to compress the carotid and jugular, but it took several minutes of holding it for the blood to stop flowing, the man thrashing and fighting him all the way. Strangulation was quite exhausting work.

He dropped the lifeless corpse to the floor and quickly rifled through the man’s pockets, but came up with no source of identification. Bond cursed, and holding his bleeding stomach, reached into his own pocket to pull out his camera phone. He took a quick snapshot of his would-be assassin’s face before stowing his phone back safely and getting the hell out of that alley.

~

Safely back at his hotel, Bond stripped his bloodied shirt over his head and threw it in the corner of the room. On quick inspection, his wound looked a lot uglier than it was, caked in drying blood. It was really more of a graze. Ignoring it for the time being, Bond crossed to the simple dresser and poured himself a good measure of Scotch, knocking it back swiftly. He had barely swallowed the fiery liquid when he heard the impatient tapping on the door.

Bond tensed immediately and reached into the dresser drawer for his trusty Walther PPK. Holding it ready, he carefully stalked to the door as quietly as he could manage and flattened his back against the wood before looking through the spy hole.

“Are you really going to make me stand in the hallway all day, 007?” Q drawled irritably from the other side. Bond lowered his gun and unlocked the door, wrenching it open to reveal a slightly ruffled Quartermaster.

“Q,” He said simply. The younger man was positively glowering at him, pink-faced, his messy brown hair sticking to his forehead with sweat. His clothing was obviously more suited to English weather than that of Cuba, layers open as much as possible to let heat escape from his body, tie wildly askew. He had a leather satchel slung crossways over his body and was trailing a small wheeled suitcase behind him.

“They made me fly.” He stated shortly, hurrying into the room. “I hate flying, 007. You know how much I hate flying.”

Bond closed the door and locked it again with a heavy sigh.

His mission had been to fly to Cuba and tail the suspected head of a drug cartel. Normally a cut-and-dry mission, but Bond had discovered in the last few days that, not only did this man run a massive drugs ring, but he had information on all the major drugs cartels in the world. Names, places, dates, all stored on one little laptop. To retrieve this information, Bond needed an expert. In short, he needed Q. Needless to say, the young Quartermaster was less than enamoured at the prospect of leaving his nice little office at Vauxhall Cross and flying to Havana to face heavily armed drug barons.

Q left his suitcase in the middle of the room and paced quickly to a chair in the corner, taking off his satchel and dropping it on the floor before peeling layers off as fast as possible. He was wearing that damn parka again, Bond noticed. He’d probably come straight from HQ and on to a plane. And, as previously stated, Q was not a fan of air travel.

“I could have taken a boat!” Q continued his rant, dropping his coat on the chair without ceremony. “Hopped on a nice cruise ship to Cuba. Failing that, a Navy Destroyer would have done. Or a row boat.”

Bond rolled his eyes slightly and moved back to the dresser to pour himself another measure of Scotch. Q was being a little melodramatic. Even with aviophobia, he was sure that flying would be much more preferable to crossing the whole of the Atlantic Ocean in a row boat. Taking a small sip of his drink, he turned his back to the dresser and leaned on it, just in time to see Q finish disposing of extra layers. His look was one of pure irritation.

“I mean honestly, was it really imperative that I…hold on, is that blood?”

Q trailed off and his blue-gray eyes widened as they fixed on the knife wound on Bond’s side, still caked with rust-coloured dried blood. Bond glanced down at it.

“Yes,” he replied, looking back up and giving Q a bright smile. Q looked horrified.

“Bloody hell, 007. What in the name of buggery have you been doing?” He said, crossing the floor space in seconds. If Bond could have taken a step backwards, he would have. “The mission was to observe, not to engage!”

Bond shrugged as Q dropped to one knee and leaned in to inspect it.

“It wasn’t my fault,” he protested. “He jumped me in an alley.”

“Did you get a good look at him?” Q asked, glancing up.

“I took a photo.”

“Right,” Q replied, getting to his feet again. “That needs cleaned,” he said, referring to the gash on Bond’s belly. “Give me the camera phone. I’ll hook it up and run the photo through face recognition while you go fill the sink up with hot water.”

Bond almost felt like arguing but decided against it. Fishing his phone out of his pocket, he handed it to his Quartermaster and retreated to the hotel room’s small bathroom, fitting the plug into the sink and turning the hot water tap on full. It took Q a matter of thirty seconds to boot up his laptop, open the software and plug in the phone, before joining Bond in the bathroom, rolling the sleeves of his crumpled white shirt up to his elbows.

“What are you doing?” Bond enquired. Q looked up and glared at him.

“Helping,” he answered shortly. “Sit.” Q pointed to the toilet and Bond sighed and reluctantly lowered himself onto the seat and watched while the younger man grabbed fistfuls of cotton wool and dropped them into the sink, letting them soak up the hot water for a few seconds before scooping them out again and squeezing out the excess.

Water ran in tiny rivulets down Bond’s skin and dripped onto his pants as Q set to work cleaning the dried blood away from the wound. It was actually rather fascinating to watch him work. Q set about his task with the same determined face Bond had seen on him when he worked back at HQ. His lips were set in a thin line, forehead gently creased, glasses balanced on the edge of his nose, slim hands working fast and with precision.

Most of the time, Bond had to remind himself that Q wasn’t a clueless kid.

He’d made the mistake of underestimating the new Quartermaster at their first meeting and was fast proven wrong about his lack of skill or talent. Q really could destroy an entire town at the click of a button should Her Majesty’s Intelligence Service wish it, or collapse the economy of a whole country. He oversaw an entire department whose sole purpose was to make weapons of death and destruction, and he carried out all of his tasks with infinite patience and ruthless efficiency. Not to mention that he was a certified genius and had an uncanny ability to keep incredibly calm under pressure.

“I didn’t know that medic was part of your skill set,” Bond commented as Q disposed of the used cotton wool and reached into the sink for fresh.

“There are a lot of things you don’t know about me, 007,” he murmured in reply as he gently squeezed more water onto the dried blood. The sensation caused Bond’s skin to develop goosebumps as the water cooled rapidly before it dried. Q gently wiped at the wound and made a small noise of confirmation.

“Hmm, it’s not bad enough to need stitches but it’s still quite deep.” He said, reaching for a towel and patting the skin dry. Only a faint pink line marred the white fabric. “It’s mostly clotted up now, but I should still try and find some superglue to keep the thing from getting worse…”

Bond snorted and pushed himself to his feet, side-stepping around Q and sidling out of the small bathroom.

“Bugger that,” he replied, receiving an irritated glare from Q who followed him.

“Sit down, 007.”

Bond stopped and turned sharply at the authoritive tone, the one that sent Q-Branch minions scattering in all directions to do his bidding. It was funny how somebody with such a soft voice could sound so commanding. Q was standing straight as an arrow, arms by his sides, fingers curled loosely. He looked ridiculous standing there in creased wool-blend trousers and crumpled shirt, hair sticking out at all angles. Yet Bond somehow felt compelled to sit down again, and did so, without argument, on the edge of the bed.

Wordlessly, Q moved to the chair and fished around in his laptop bag, coming up with a half-empty tube of superglue. Dropping to his knees, Q began to glue the ragged edges of the knife wound together, face a mask of grim concentration once again.

Bond watched him silently. He didn’t think he’d ever seen Q this close up before. His eyes traced the curve of the nose and that thin line of a mouth. He looked, and took in every pore, every freckle, every forehead crinkle, but he still couldn’t figure out how this mild-mannered and softly spoken man had made this seasoned double-oh sit down like a naughty schoolchild.

“There, all done.” Q murmured as he replaced the superglue cap and sat back on his heels.

“Thank you,” Bond found himself saying in reply.

“You’re welcome,” was Q’s quiet and polite reply.

From the laptop on the table came a sharp beep and Q’s attention snapped away from Bond immediately and he scrambled to his feet with all the grace of a baby giraffe and tapped a couple of keys.

“Got him,” Q said, his voice back to its usual clipped professionalism. Bond grabbed a clean shirt from his open case and tugged it on before crossing over to Q and the laptop.

“And?”

“Ramon Rodriguez. Columbian. One of Salazar’s men.”

Bond had figured as much. He’d been tailing Miguel Salazar for three days now, gathering intelligence on the suspected drugs lord. He had been careful, as his instructions so far had been to observe only, but you can’t really spy on a Columbian drug baron without somebody noticing somewhere along the line.

“He’s on to you. We need to recover the intel on that laptop as soon as possible.”

“Can you do it remotely?” Bond asked, watching as Q brought up screen after screen of blue on black, his fingers flying over the keyboard.

“I’ll do my best,” Q replied. “But I have a feeling that you may have to venture outside again for this one, 007.”


	2. Chapter 2

“Talk to me, Q.”

“What on earth for?” Q’s voice sounded softly in his ear as Bond walked towards Miguel Salazar’s hotel.

“I find it soothing,” he replied, grinning as he heard Q snort gently in mirth on the other end.

This was more familiar to Bond; the banter. The exchange between Q and himself in his room earlier that afternoon had unsettled Bond slightly. There were not many people in this world that could make James Bond jump to it, but it turned out that the young Quartermaster was indeed one of the few. He’d observed the Q-branch minions scurry off like little mice at one irritated, yet softly-spoken word from their superior and up until this moment it had amused Bond greatly. Now it had him pondering exactly how Q managed to hide such an authoritative countenance under his gentle exterior. Possibly not the most appropriate use of his brain power at this particular moment, seeing as he was attempting to break into the hotel room of one of the world’s most powerful drug lords to steal the information on his laptop. Bond needed to get his head in the game.

He crossed the lobby of the hotel and hit the button for the elevators.

“Where is Salazar now?” he asked quietly, looking left and right as he waited for the lift but finding the lobby mostly deserted but for the concierge, an elderly Canadian couple and a businessman reading a local newspaper and drinking dark rum over ice.

Back in Bond’s hotel room, Q was sitting cross-legged on the bed, laptop balanced on his knees as he scanned the various security camera feeds on his screen. He was now much more sensibly dressed for the weather and much less irate.

“Having lunch with a gentleman by the window in the dining room,” Q replied lightly as he zoomed in on Ramon Salazar’s face. The man looked positively jovial with a large cigar stuck in his fat gob. Cuba certainly had its perks. He hit a few keys and the facial recognition software kicked into life. Seconds later, the identity of Salazar’s lunch partner flashed up on Q’s screen. “Well, would you look at that,” he murmured softly. “Lunch with the Afghans. Probably discussing the roaring trade in cocaine and heroin.”

“Lackeys?” Bond pressed as he got into the lift and hit the button for the third floor. It was nice that Q was having fun, but really, there were more pressing matters to see to.

“Two in the dining room, keeping an eye on His Nibs,” Q said, closing down his software and scanning his screen. “One is prowling the third floor, so be careful there.”

Bond nodded, even though he knew that Q wouldn’t see it. The elevator pinged and the doors opened out onto the third floor.

“Where am I going?”

“Salazar has the suite in the middle, number 306,” Q replied. “Lackey is coming around the corner…now.”

True enough, a tall and wiry Columbian with thick eyebrows and dark stubble emerged the second Q spoke. Bond nodded politely as they passed and the Columbian did likewise as he made his way down the corridor. The third floor was one large loop, and Bond reckoned that he had two minutes before the lackey made his circuit. Rounding the corner, he made for room 306 and pulled out a key card attached to a reader from his pocket and inserted it into the slot on the door. It only took a couple of seconds for the lights on the reader to flash green and he heard the door lock click open.

“I’m in,” Bond told the Quartermaster quietly as he looked around to take in his surroundings. The suite was small but plush, and incredibly tidy. Bond surmised that, if he opened the wardrobe, all of Salazar’s shirts would be hanging up neatly, probably in colour order. But there was no time to investigate. He quickly located what he was there for, sitting abandoned on the top of a mahogany desk. “I’ve found the laptop.”

“Good,” Q responded brightly, sitting up straight and putting his feet on the floor before opening up another program. “Open it up, but don’t switch it on. Have you got that USB stick?”

Bond fished around in his pocket again and unearthed a small and unassuming black USB.

“Yes,”

“Pop it in,”

“I bet you say that to all the boys,” Bond said with a smirk as he opened the laptop and fitted the USB stick.

“Only when I want to get my hands on their hardware,” Q replied mildly. Bond could almost hear him trying not to smile.

Q pushed his glasses back up to the bridge of his nose and set to work, fingers flying over the keyboard. Bond watched as the laptop in front of him sprang to life in an accelerated start-up sequence, lines of unintelligible code dancing on the screen.

“Well, he’s obviously not worried about anyone hacking in or stealing this thing,” Q said. “His security is practically non-existent. I hacked his firewall in ten seconds. To be honest, it’s a little insulting!”

“I love it when you talk nerdy to me” Bond grinned as he checked his watch. The lackey should be on his second round by now.

“Now pay attention, 007.” Q replied, his voice now full of mirth. “You might learn something.”

It was then that a strange noise distracted the Quartermaster. He looked up sharply and his hands ceased their movement on the keyboard instantly. From the door there came the unmistakable sound of metal scratching against metal and Q recognised it immediately.

“Bond? I think we have a problem.”

“I thought you said you hacked it?” Bond replied with a frown.

“Not with the laptop,” Q said quietly, standing up and reaching for his satchel. “I think somebody is breaking in.”

Panic was not an emotion that James Bond had felt many times in his life, but now it gripped him firmly, flowing icy cold through his body to knot tightly in his chest.

“Can you get out?” he murmured, hands gripping the mahogany desk so firmly that his knuckles turned white.

“Yes,” Q replied, looking about the room as the metallic scratching continued. Whoever was trying to pick the lock was apparently completely inept at breaking and entering. “I can get out of the window. Bond?”

“Yes?”

“I have to pull the plug.”

“Do it.”

Q ripped the cable from the laptop and slammed it shut, stuffing it forcefully into his satchel which he then slung over his body and raced to the open window just as the door flew open. The man facing him was most definitely one of Salazar’s minions, dressed in the same slacks, polo t-shirt and jacket as the others, and holding a silenced pistol. Their eyes locked for a second before the man raised his pistol. Q jumped.

It was only a two-storey drop and Q remembered to bend his knees into the impact with the ground, but it didn’t stop the jarring pain the shot up through his ankles and into his shins as he landed a little awkwardly and rolled to the side, grazing his elbow on the hot pavement. Scrambling to his feet as fast as he could, Q chanced a look back up at the window. The man’s face was staring down at him, arms outstretched and ready to fire again.

Q’s fight-or-flight response kicked in and he bolted, running as fast as he could away from the hotel, down unfamiliar streets and strange plazas. He ignored the pain in his shins and fought against the impulse to look over his shoulder. Don’t look back, just keep running, he repeated in his head like a mantra. He didn’t even know if he was still being followed, but the adrenaline was coursing through his veins, refusing to let him stop until his thigh muscles started to seize up with the lactic acid build-up and his lungs felt as though they were about to burst.

It may have been a loose paving stone or perhaps just sheer exhaustion that caused Q to stop, crashing to the ground and landing on his knees, gasping for air like a fish out of water. Sweat coated every inch of his skin like a film, rolling down his forehead and into his eyes, his glasses slipping hazardously down the bridge of his nose. Pushing his sodden fringe away from his face, Q looked up and took in his surroundings. It was possibly the worst place he could have stopped.

He was in an alleyway behind what smelled like a street full of restaurants or cafes, the smell of fresh cooking and spices mingling with the sickly-sweet smell of refuse decomposing in the Havana heat. Apart from one startled skinny cat, the alley was devoid of activity. Noises of pots clanging, kettles whistling and people yelling to each other and singing spilled out of the windows and under the cracks of doors. It was a miracle that Q managed to hear and recognise the tell-tale sound out a gun being cocked near to his ear.

Q threw himself backwards and heard the cough of the silenced weapon as he made contact with another body, sending them both sprawling. It wasn’t the smoothest move and he was hindered by the laptop-laden satchel banging against his side, but it had surprised his attacker enough to give Q the advantage. Scrambling to his feet, Q stomped hard on the man’s right kneecap. The resulting roar of pain was satisfactory but Q had no time to revel in his success as he cast his eyes about the alley for something, anything, that he could use as a weapon. Out of the corner of his eye, Q spotted what looked to be the broken leg of a chair or a stool, propped up against one of the refuse bins and he made a dive for it.

What happened next was all a bit of a blur, and Q would swear for the rest of his life that he couldn’t remember the particulars. But he would always remember the roar of rage that filled the alley, and the way the man’s body seemed to cave as the broken chair leg pierced through clothing and skin, cutting through the stomach and up through the diaphragm and into the heart, puncturing the aorta. He would remember the gurgling noise of the blood bubbling up through the man’s throat and out of his mouth, spilling a river of red down the white polo shirt, and lastly, Q would always remember the way the man’s eyes rolled back, showing the red-stippled whites as he slowly keeled over, dead.

It was full dark when Q finally made it to the British Embassy, the designated place the meet should anything go wrong. It was a wonder that he’d made it looking the way he did, dirty and grazed, clothes sticking to his body and hands covered in blood. Nevertheless, he had made it to that little part of British soil in Cuba, and the gate was immediately opened when Q identified himself.

“There should be a colleague of mine…” Q started to say as he was herded inside the embassy.

“Commander Bond?” his escort interrupted him. “He’s here, sir. He’s waiting for you in the suite.”

Relief flooded through Q with the new knowledge that Bond had made it back out of Salazar’s hotel without his help. They both made it out okay. He suddenly felt quite weak.

Bond caught him with strong arms as Q practically fell through the door, and hauled him upright.

“Jesus Christ, what happened to you?” Bond asked as he helped the Quartermaster through the suite to a bedroom. His blue eyes took in the bloody hands and the grazed skin and the panic he had felt earlier flooded back. Q’s legs buckled just as they reached the bed and Bond took his weight as he lowered the younger man down on it. Frantically, Bond attempted to undo the buttons on Q’s shirt - now streaked with red from where Q had tried to wipe his hands – in the search for injuries that didn’t exist.

“I’m fine,” Q’s response was barely audible as he swayed slightly on the bed. Bond paid no attention as he carried on stripping the soiled clothes from the Quartermaster’s body, concern etched into every line on his face. There was a lot of blood, far too much for Bond to let it slide. He knew there had to be an injury here somewhere and he wasn’t going to just sit back at let Q bleed.

“Where is it?” he muttered to himself, running a calloused hand over Q’s stomach, causing the muscle to twitch.

“007!”

The soft, authoritative tone cut through Bond’s reverie and he stopped immediately, looking up into Q’s tired grey-green eyes.

“I’m fine,” he repeated. “It isn’t my blood.”

It took a second or two for the words to sink in, but Bond’s hands dropped to his sides with mild embarrassment when they did.

“Right…” he said dully.

“Thank you for the concern though,” Q grinned wryly.

He looked exhausted and dirty and very very young, Bond thought to himself. He watched as Q flopped bonelessly backwards onto the covers and, after a second, sat down next to him. Q had his eyes closed lightly.

“If it’s not your blood, then I can only hazard a guess as to how the other guy faired.”

“I think it’s safe to say that he won’t be getting up again,” Q murmured wearily.

Bond sighed softly and nodded. For a mission with no contact, there seemed to be a lot of bodies building up. At least he could be thankful that Q’s body wasn’t among them. The Quartermaster, despite his skinny frame and geek persona, was obviously quite able to hold his own in a scrap. Bond wasn’t sure of he should be surprised or impressed.

He glanced down at the younger man, eyes closed with his glasses slightly askew on his nose, breathing starting to slow as sleep began to take over.

“Oh, no you don’t.” Bond said, pulling Q upright again and receiving a groan of protest. “I’m not letting you go to sleep like that. You need a shower first.”

Q was too knackered to put up a fight and allowed himself to be manhandled out of his clothes and into the shower. His brain was too tired to process the fact that he was being held upright and washed off by the hands of a trained killer, and by the time he was dried, dressed in monogrammed British Embassy nightwear and tucked into bed, he was already asleep.

Bond watched him quietly, glass of Scotch in hand as Q slept, his wet hair almost black against the stark white of the pillow. He looked childlike and innocent in his slumber and Bond had to once again remind himself that Q was not, in fact, a kid. The Quartermaster had killed a man today and it was Bond’s fault. The lackey had come looking for a double-oh and had found something much more valuable, whether he’d known it or not. Q could have been killed on Bond’s watch but by some miracle, he was alive and sleeping off his adventure in a ridiculously oversized bed inside the British Embassy. Sighing, Bond finished off his Scotch, ice cubes rattling in the glass has he retreated from the room and closed the door behind him.

There was obviously a lot more to this Quartermaster than he’d ever thought possible.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter with not that much happening I'm afraid. Next chapter will be better, I promise.

The first thing that registered in Q’s brain as he regained consciousness was pain. Peeling his eyes open with effort, he let out a strangled groan as he tried to stretch out from the foetal position that he had undoubtedly been lying in all night. His muscles were stiff and burned when he tried to move. Q inwardly cursed himself for not being as fit as he probably should have been. But then again, he didn’t often expect to be chased through the streets of a foreign city by an assassin.

With enormous exertion, Q pulled himself up and thrust a hand out, fingers scrabbling for contact with his glasses and finding them sitting neatly on top of the bed-side table next to a lamp. Vision corrected, he set about the task of actually getting out of the bed. The pain made his eyes sting with the prickling of tears as he sat on the edge of the mattress, moving each limb carefully until it became a dull ache and eased.

Beyond his bedroom, he heard a soft knock on the door of the suite and registered the movement as somebody went to answer it. Bond, presumably. He vaguely remembered being clinically stripped down and bundled into the shower by the agent the night before, but didn’t remember how he got into bed. It all would have been a little humiliating had he not been too exhausted to actually care.

From the room next door, Q heard the familiar sound of metal spoon against china and his brain perked up at the prospect of tea. Levering himself upright, he walked gingerly to the bedroom door and opened it. Bond was sitting on a plush armchair, a plain china teacup in one hand and a copy of the Financial Times in the other, resting across his lap. On the small walnut table was a large silver tray with a teapot, extra cup, and a cake stand filled with croissants and pastries and muffins, plus two small ramekins filled with fresh yellow butter and strawberry jam. The sight of the food made his mouth water; he couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten.

“Good morning, sunshine!” Bond said chirpily over the top of his newspaper. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I was hit by a steam-roller,” Q replied, picking up a croissant and splitting it between his finger and thumb.

“What, flat?”

Bond had lowered his newspaper and was smirking at the Quartermaster, who felt the corner of his own mouth twitch up in a smile.

“Something like that,” he murmured as he slathered butter and jam onto his croissant and took a bite.

“There’s Earl Gray in the teapot, by the way.”

“Oh, thank God!” Q muttered around a mouthful of his breakfast and abandoned the croissant on the tray while he went for the teapot and poured the bergamot-flavoured brew into the spare cup. Bond watched him, amused until his phone beeped ominously. He fished it out of his pocket one-handed.

“M wants to speak to us. Video call in two minutes”

“Fuck,” Q muttered, croissant dripping jam in one hand and steaming cup of tea in the other. “I’m still in my pyjamas.”

Bond burst out laughing.

Two minutes later, Q had licked the last of the sticky jam from his fingers, finished his tea and was now sitting in front of his laptop trying to make his hair look as presentable as possible as Bond loomed over his shoulder. M didn’t look too impressed.

“Do you have the intel from Salazar’s laptop?”

“No, sir. Not yet.” Bond said before launching into the tale of the day before, of the room being broken into and of Q running for his life, ultimately killing his would-be assassin. Q shifted uncomfortably in his chair under the scrutiny of his superior and Bond’s storytelling making Q out to be a lot more adept than he actually believed he was.

“Right, well you’re going to have to go back in, 007.” Mallory said as he leaned back in his chair. “FSB have been on the blower. Apparently they suspect Salazar is somehow involved with a sex trafficking ring out of Russia. They wanted to send one of theirs in but I told them that we have the matter in hand. No point in getting our wires crossed.”

“Yes sir,” Q and Bond both replied at the same time. On the other end of the video call, M leaned in close.

“I want the intel in our possession by the end of the day.”

He hit a button and the screen went blank, leaving Bond and Q to exchange looks.

“Best get cracking,” said Bond, heading off towards the bathroom.

~

It took a few hours for them to get themselves together. Somebody from the Embassy had picked up their things from the hotel during the night, so Q had fresh clothes to change into. Bond wondered if the Quartermaster owned anything other than dress shirts and cardigans.

Q had spent the time studying the building blueprints and planning a route in and out of Salazar’s hotel, taking note of any exits to use in emergencies , and hacking into the hotel’s security feeds while Bond meticulously disassembled, cleaned, and reassembled his Walther. It was a scene of bizarre almost-domesticity, the pair of them together, quietly getting on with their jobs, one drinking Scotch and the other drinking tea.

It was late afternoon by the time Bond left the embassy and made his way to Salazar’s hotel, Q tucked safely away in their suite, monitoring the little red dot on his laptop screen.

“His Nibs is playing cards downstairs. Lackeys are in attendance again. Number three is prowling the third floor,” Q’s soft voice sounded in Bond’s earpiece as he once again crossed the lobby and hit the elevator button. He didn’t even see the third man as he walked around the corner to Salazar’s room, opened the door with the coded key card and slipped inside.

“Same as last time?” Bond asked, taking the little unassuming black USB stick out of his pocket once more.

“Yes, just open it up and let the stick work its magic.”

Bond snorted amusedly at the fact that he could once again turn one of Q’s sentences into innuendo, but kept it to himself this time as the laptop restarted the accelerated start-up sequence.

Q watched the little grey bar fill green as the files transferred to his own laptop. A few files seemed to be encrypted but the rest were fine and the whole thing took only a few minutes to complete, accompanied by a comfortingly flashing green ‘100%’ on his screen.

“Got it. Now get out of there before somebody catches you.”

“Yes, sir!” Bond replied cheerfully, pulling the USB pen out of Salazar’s laptop and stashing it back into his pocket. He never saw it coming, the blow to the back of his head administered by a fourth lackey that neither of them had known existed.

Q heard the thud as Bond crumpled unconscious to the floor.

“007?” He enquired. Only silence on the other end. “Bond?” Q pressed, feeling the panic start to rise at the lack of response. 

His only reply was the crunch of Bond’s earpiece being crushed underfoot, and the connection went dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has left kudos and comments. They are all so much appreciated.


	4. Chapter 4

007 was compromised.

_Fuck, shit, bugger, what the hell am I supposed to do?_

Q was pacing swiftly back and forth in front of his laptop, tugging frantically at his hair while the little red dot of Bond’s tracker blinked at him teasingly. If only that little red dot could tell him that Bond was alright, was alive, but it would still transmit his position if he was dead. Q glanced back at his monitor and let out a small groan of despair as the security cameras showed the third-floor prowler enter Salazar’s suite, and then show Salazar’s two lackeys collect their Boss from his card game with a whispered word into his ear. Bond was most definitely in trouble.

He tried to swallow down the rising panic and had to gulp in a few large lungfuls of air to help clear his head. This was most irregular for Q. He didn’t panic, not at all. Things may have him slightly on edge at times, but he never panicked. Except for right now, stuck inside the British Embassy while his double-oh was probably getting the shit kicked out of him at the hands of Columbian drug dealers.

“Calm the fuck down and figure something out,” he told himself sternly. After all, it wasn’t as though 007 had a bad track record of getting himself out of bad scrapes. Q should not be so concerned about it. He just needed to get a fucking grip on himself and do his job.

Another glance down at his monitor showed that Salazar and his two men were getting out of the lift at the third floor. Q sprung into action, lunging for his chair and dragging the laptop onto his knees as he started to type the sequence for hacking into the hotel’s fire safety protocols.

~

It was the second punch to the face that roused Bond back into the land of the living, the big heavy fist catching him squarely on the jaw. He groaned loudly and his brain registered a quiet conversation in Spanish which stopped the moment he made a noise and stirred.

The back of his head was throbbing painfully and the punch to his face had landed directly where a bruise had been forming from his tussle the day before. He knew that he had to think quickly, to take in his surroundings and the situation he was in but that was easier said than done when everything from the neck upwards was in agony.

“Quién eres?”

Bond blinked and lifted his head. Sitting on a chair before him was Miguel Salazar, ringed by his four henchmen. Salazar was in his mid-fifties, black hair streaked with silver, skin tanned as brown as a nut and leathery from prolonged exposure to the sun. At one point in his life, Miguel Salazar would have been broad and well-built but all the muscle had now turned to fat and all the expensive well-tailored suits in the world could not hide that fact. From what Bond had read in his brief, Salazar had worked his way up through the ranks over the past twenty five years. He was head of one of the smaller cartels and refused to take part in the petty feuds of the others, focussing solely on the deals he could make and the money they could bring in. He was a very shrewd businessman.

Salazar peered at Bond with hard, dark eyes as he puffed gently on his Cuban cigar.

“Kto ty?”

Salazar spoke again and Bond recognised it as Russian. It looked like the FSB’s suspicions had been confirmed. Bond ignored him and gave his hands an experimental wiggle. He was tied to a wooden desk chair by…rope or some kind of fabric and not a cable tie. Either the Drug Lord was fresh out of cable ties or he had literally no idea that SIS agents were trained to unfasten ligatures in minutes.

“Who are you?”

Bond grinned as Salazar finally found the correct language to communicate in.

“Oh, come on,” Bond chuckled. “You’re not seriously expecting me to tell you that, are you?”

He watched as a muscle in Salazar’s cheek twitched. One slight movement of his hand and Bond was being punched in the face again, once, twice. The third blow split his lower lip and the salt-iron taste of blood filled his mouth. The lackey stepped back and Salazar took another slow puff of his cigar.

“You no wanna fuck with me, hijo,” the drug lord said in his soft accent, blowing cigar smoke into the air. “Now, tell me who you work for?”

Bond twisted his wrists a little more, working the rope further down his hands. The knots were tight, but he was sure that he could get his hands free. Untying his legs was going to pose the biggest problem. Salazar’s bodyguards would more than likely shoot him before his hands even reached the knots.

“Really?” Bond retorted. “You can’t even hazard a guess for yourself?”

He watched as Salazar sat back in his chair and crossed his arms, his eyebrows knotted.

“You are English.” Salazar said eventually. “Secret Intelligence Service.”

“Oh, well done,” Bond replied. “Wasn’t really so difficult in the end now, was it?”

Salazar smiled, showing nicotine-stained teeth and snapped his fingers. A lackey stepped forward.

“You have a big mouth. Men with big mouths, you say wrong things. You piss me off.” Salazar took another long puff of his cigar. “Pedro here,” he pointed to the man at his side, “when he was a kid, he had big mouth too. I made him nice, respectful boy. You know how I do that?”

“I can’t possibly imagine,” Bond said dryly. He had almost worked his hands free of the rope.

“The ear.”

Salazar wiggled his earlobe between a thumb and forefinger before pointing back at the man he’d called Pedro. Bond could not help but look. Sure enough, missing from the right side of his head, was his ear. The whole ear, cut off to leave only an ugly linear scar where it had once been. His eyes flickered back to Salazar, who was grinning at him.

“You see, in Columbia, when somebody needs taught a lesson, we cut. Little things at first, things they no really need, like the ear. If they still do not learn, we cut more important things. You, I think, need a little lesson, not to fuck with Miguel Salazar.”

Bond’s hands were almost free when Salazar snapped his fingers again and Pedro stepped forward with a large jagged-edged knife in his hand. He stepped up behind Bond and wrapped a meaty hand around his chin, tilting his head backwards harshly. Bond felt the cold steel tip of the knife against his flesh and braced himself for the pain to come.

And then the lights went out. The fire alarm started to ring, loud and jarring and seconds later the sprinklers went off, spraying water everywhere. Bond’s hands were free. In the pitch black, he grasped at the hand that was holding his chin and pulled, twisting it sharply. He jabbed his other elbow back and made contact with the man’s testicles, causing to howl in pain and step back. Bond made a grab for the knife as the man doubled over and wrest it from his grasp, using it to cut his legs free.

The other three lackeys seemed to be in turmoil, blind in the darkness and not knowing which of them were friend or foe. Salazar was screaming at them in Spanish, just as confused and not happy at getting saturated. Bond grinned to himself as he made a mad dash in the direction of the door and wrenched it open.

In the hallway, the situation was the same. Hotel guests were running blind in the hallways, screaming over the deafening ring of the fire alarms. Somebody bumped into Bond and he immediately dipped his hand into the inside pocket of a jacket, fishing out a phone. He dialled the emergency number.

~

On the other side of Havana, in the guest suite of the British Embassy, Q dived on his ringing phone.

“007?”

“Q,” came the amused reply. Q let out a shaky, relieved sigh.

“Oh, it is good to hear your voice,” he admitted as he sank down into his chair.

“Good to hear yours too,” replied Bond. “For a minute I was concerned that I wasn’t going to get the chance to hear anything again.” He flattened himself against the wall as some screaming guests ran past him. “Now, be a good lad and get me out of here.”

Q wedged the phone between his ear and his shoulder and pulled his laptop onto his knee. The little red dot of Bond’s tracker was flashing happily at him, registering Bond’s presence on the third floor, in the corridor just down from Salazar’s suite.

“Turn to your right, go straight for fifty paces. There should be an emergency exit door right in front of you. Go through it and head for the roof.”

Bond followed his instructions to the letter and the door opened with no resistance. The lights were off in the stairwell too but at least there were no sprinklers as he took the stairs two at a time and opened the door to the roof.

“What now?” he asked as he stepped out into the moonlight, the streetlamps below casting a soft glow.

“There is a four foot gap between the hotel and the next building. Do you think you can jump it?”

“Can a chicken lay eggs?” Bond replied with a smirk as he took a run up to the edge and leapt into the empty space, landing expertly on the other side.

“There is a fire escape running down the outside of that building down to the street.”

“Got it. I should be back within half an hour.”

“Alright.”

“Q?” Bond queried, slowing as he ran down the metal staircase.

“Yes?”

“Thank you.”

Back in the safety of the Embassy, Q broke into a grin.

“Any time,” he replied as Bond disconnected the call. Q closed his own phone and leaned back in his chair. Bond was alive, he was safe and he was on his way back. They also had the intel. He ran a hand through the back of his hair as he sat there, thinking quietly. Q noticed that he was shaking slightly, probably with the adrenaline. It wasn’t anything like he’d experienced the day before. He knew that he should get up and send the information that Bond had just risked his life to acquire, but all he could think about was the fact that Bond was alright. His legs trembled even though he was sitting down, and he took a deep breath to steady himself.

“Get a grip,” he told himself for the second time in half an hour and reached for his laptop again. He might as well send the intel to Tanner now and keep his mind occupied whilst waiting for his double-oh. Otherwise he was going to drive himself frantic.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it has taken so long for me to update! Back on track now...with any luck.

Bond walked at a swift pace through the streets of Havana, taking a circuitous route and constantly looking back over his shoulder, hyper-aware that any of Salazar’s men could be right behind him. The back of his head was throbbing where he had been knocked out and the right side of his face wasn’t feeling that much better. He was lucky though, to have made it out of there with everything intact and really, just a few bruises to show for it. It could have been worse. If it hadn’t have been for Q, Bond would most likely still be tied to a chair and missing an ear right about now. The Quartermaster’s quick thinking had saved him that at least. Clever Q, hacking into the hotel’s fire alarms and plunging the whole place into darkness, giving Bond the opportunity he needed to escape without further harm. He always seemed to be there when Bond needed help most.

His clothes had mostly dried in the Cuban night-time heat by the time he rounded the corner to the British Embassy, but he couldn’t hide the split lip or the bruises darkening on his jaw already, new marks on top of the ones he had received the day before. All the same, he was checked in at the gate without comment and hurried inside, bounding up the stairs to the suite, eager to see Q.

~

The Quartermaster had been pacing the floor for the last fifteen minutes, having already sent the intel to Bill Tanner. Bond was late. He had told Q that he would be back within half an hour but it had been thirty five minutes now and was creeping up to forty. Q was beginning to worry and with each minute that passed by, he was starting to get frantic. Several scenarios popped into the Quartermaster’s head: Bond had fallen to his death from the fire escape seconds after hanging up their phone call; Salazar’s men had pursued him and shot him through the heart, leaving him to bleed to death in some god-forsaken Havana alleyway; Bond had been in such a hurry to get back to the Embassy that he had neglected to pay attention to his surroundings and been hit by a car or a bus or a truck.

Q stopped and removed his glasses, pinching the bridge of his nose to ease the ache. He was thinking too much, overanalysing the significance of the time passed. Half an hour didn’t necessarily mean exactly _half_ an hour. Of course it would take Bond a little more time to get back if he was taking an indirect route in order to avoid being followed. He would be back at any minute, safe and sound.

Just then, he heard the door handle turn and quickly shoved his glasses back onto his face, blinking at the swift change in focus. Bond appeared in the doorway looking like Hell and Q found his feet moving, rapidly, as a tidal wave of relief surged through him and he hastened across the expanse of crimson Embassy carpet. His brain kicked in a couple of seconds later and Q stopped just short of Bond, his arms half-raised. He had been just about to hug one of Britain’s most highly-trained killing machines. Q clamped his arms to his sides, feeling himself colour slightly.

“You’re late,” Q said, sounding a lot more cross than he actually was. Bond shrugged.

“The traffic was against me.”

“You weren’t driving,” Q replied quietly, his fists clenching and unclenching at his sides. A light chuckled bubbled in Bond’s throat and he grinned but winced immediately after as his bottom lip split open again where it had just started to crust over. Q’s nose wrinkled in sympathy.

Bond was still slightly damp from where he’d been caught by the sprinklers, the neckline of his polo shirt quite dry but the rest of it, still wet and clinging to his broad shoulders and stomach. His close-cropped blond hair was darker at the ends from where water was still clinging to them. Bond looked tired but Q noticed that he was standing straight with no difficulty, meaning that whatever beating the agent had taken had been concentrated on his face and not his body. His face looked terrible though. Bond’s right cheek was swollen and red, with the slight purple of fresh bruising showing through. Q couldn’t tell if Bond’s nose was broken or not, since the man had a permanent bump on the bridge from repeated breakage. His lip was the only place where the flesh had been split, as far as Q could see, red blood welling up along the tear, as crimson as the Embassy’s carpet beneath their feet. Against all his better judgement, Q reached up and placed the pad of his thumb against the fresh cut.

“They beat the shit out of you,” he whispered.

“I’ve had worse.”

They were closer now than they had ever been, Q having stepped forward a little more into Bond’s space. He was bloody and sodden and battle scarred, standing only two inches taller than Q.

“We should clean that,” Q murmured and let his hand drop as he turned slightly to move past Bond, but stopped dead in his tracks as a large hand suddenly enveloped his.

“Stop,” Bond said quietly, pulling Q back to him. “It’s really not necessary.”

Q’s heart missed a beat. Sea-green eyes met ice-blue and for a moment he couldn’t breathe. He watched as Bond’s eyes flickered down to his lips and then back up. The hardened killer was missing, replaced by somebody altogether softer, lonelier.

The corner of Bond’s mouth twitched upwards ever so slightly as he looked at Q. His Q. His stubborn, snarky, cool and collected Quartermaster who put up with Bond’s recklessness and did his best to get him out of trouble. His Q, who listened to Bond’s lewd comments and innuendo that often bordered on sexual harassment, but gave back as good as he got. His Q, whose cage was never rattled, yet was standing here, looking at Bond with such concern that it was almost heartbreaking.

Then Bond found himself leaning forward, closing the tiny gap between them to place a ghost of a kiss on Q’s lips, and then after a heartbeat, a second one. By the third, Q’s hand found the back of Bond’s neck, pulling him closer as all the air he had been holding in his lungs rushed out through his nose. Blood from the cut on Bond’s lip found its way onto Q’s tongue and his taste-buds were assaulted by the metallic salt taste, mingling with the citrus bergamot from his last cup of Earl Gray. For a moment, the kiss was deep and heated, until Bond stopped and leaned back.

“I’m sorry,” he breathed, blue eyes desperately roaming Q’s face for signs that he’d seriously over-stepped a boundary. But Q just shook his head and closed the gap again, pulling Bond back towards him and crushing another kiss against his dry, chapped lips.

Hands pulled at clothing as Q was gently pushed backwards, fingers brushing against smooth skin until he felt his back bump against the wall. Taking initiative, Q grasped the hem of Bond’s polo shirt and gave a slight tug, delighting in the way that Bond stopped everything to allow Q to pull the shirt up and over his head. Tossing the shirt to the side, Q took a second to look about him. There was a small settee to their right and Q pushed Bond down onto it, still marvelling at Bond’s passivity. The agent’s hands found their way under the Quartermaster’s shirt as he pulled the slim body down into him, resuming the heated kisses that made his heart race.

Q rolled Bond’s bottom lip between his teeth, biting down gently and tasting the iron tang of blood and delighting in the sharp gasp of pain that Bond made. He felt himself be lifted by strong arms as Bond stood up in one fluid movement, wrapping Q’s legs around his waist and crossing the short distance to the closer of the suite’s bedrooms. He hit the mattress and bounced lightly a couple of times before his body was swiftly covered by the warm bulk of Bond, unbuttoning Q’s shirt slowly, wet mouth leaving a trail of kisses and a faint line of blood as he made his way down the Quartermaster’s chest.

Clothes were lost quickly, practically torn away from limbs and thrown away in the rush to feel skin on skin. Legs entangled and fingernails scraped lightly at shoulders as sweat pooled in the creases of elbows and behind knees. Fingers found hard flesh and encircled it, moving slowly, firmly, each man drawing harsh, ragged breaths from the other as they reached the edge of orgasm.

It hit Bond first, the tight pressure building low and coiling upwards. He came with a low growl as his body tensed and shuddered, his hand tightening around Q’s hardness as he sank his teeth into the Quartermaster’s bony shoulder. Q cried out softly at the sharp pain and came seconds later, spilling over Bond’s hand, his fingers gripping the short strands of pale blond hair that were now completely dry.

They lay entwined for a few moments, taking deep breaths to restore oxygen to brain. It was only when Bond heard Q’s breathing stabilise and slow that he glanced down at him. The Quartermaster’s eyes were closed, long dark eyelashes resting on flushed cheeks. Bond allowed himself a small smile before attempting to disentangle himself from Q’s long limbs.

“No,” Q mumbled, fingers scrabbling lightly against Bond’s skin as one eye opened just a crack. “Stay.”

Bond’s smile turned into a full grin as he shuffled back into position and wrapped his arms around the skinny frame, pulling Q close and letting him rest his dishevelled head on his chest.

“Okay.”


	6. Chapter 6

Bond woke from a deep sleep, his face in so much pain that it brought tears to his eyes. He let out a small groan and rolled over onto his side, only to find the bed empty, the covers on the other side neatly made and suggesting that the second occupant would not be rejoining him. He lay there for a few moments, feeling the warm breeze floating through the open windows as he listened for any signs of life in the suite. Sure enough he could hear Q’s voice, muffled by the closed doors. Bond slowly sat up and located his underwear and trousers before padding to the bedroom door and opening it.

Q was sitting in the same armchair that Bond has been sitting in the previous morning, his laptop balanced on his knee and a live video feed taking up the whole screen. He looked up as Bond entered the room, his face blank and calm.

“Here he is, sir,” Q said, turning back to the laptop.

“Good, pass him over,” Bond heard M reply. Q stood swiftly and handed Bond the laptop without so much as a glance and went to pour himself tea from the large silver breakfast tray. Bond frowned as he sat in the recently vacated chair. He didn’t quite know what he’d expected from Q, especially not with the Head of Operation for MI6 on live feed, but he’d at least thought Q would have been less, well, cold. A smile perhaps, or even a glance in his direction. But instead, Q was walking away with his fresh cup of Earl Gray, disappearing into the suite’s second bedroom.

He mentally chastised himself as he positioned the laptop comfortably on his knee. He wasn’t a teenage girl and neither was Q. He couldn’t count the many times he had acted with indifference to somebody come the morning. This wasn’t the time or place for it. He was in the middle of a mission.

“Good morning, sir.”

“007,” M replied, leaning back casually in his chair. “Good to see you in one piece. I hear it was quite an eventful evening.”

“You could say that, sir,” Bond said, rubbing his ear absently.

“You still look like hell though,” M muttered and Bond grinned.

“I’ve had worse, sir.”

M gave a hum of agreement and tapped a few keys on his computer keyboard.

“Anyway, the intel you acquired was spectacular. We have quite a bit to share with the cousins all over the world. Speaking of which, the Russians were right. Salazar is indeed involved with a human trafficking ring…routed through England. We can’t be having that now, can we 007?”

“Indeed we can’t, sir. Very bad form indeed,” Bond agreed.

“The KGB wanted to send a man over, but I have assured them that we can take care of the situation well enough.”

That was the kill order that Bond had been waiting to hear.

“With pleasure,” Bond replied. He meant it.

M nodded and then looked past Bond.

“Q?”

“Yes, sir?” Q replied, standing just behind Bond’s left shoulder. Bond had no idea how the Quartermaster had managed to move around so silently.

“Tanner tells me that you have some heavily encrypted files that can’t be accessed without your equipment here at Thames House?” M enquired.

“That’s right, sir”

“In that case, I want you back as soon as possible. There will be a secret service car ready to pick you up at the Embassy in an hour. And Bond?”

“Sir?” said Bond.

“Make sure you kill that bastard today.”

M leaned forward and the laptop screen went black as the feed was cut. Bond turned in his seat to say something to Q, but the Quartermaster had disappeared again. Annoyed, Bond slammed the laptop closed and tossed it carelessly aside as he got up from the chair. He didn’t have time for Q’s juvenile antics. Locating the polo shirt that had been recklessly discarded the night before, he headed back into his bedroom to change and prepare.

He had a man to kill.

~

Bond got received a call from Bill Tanner as he left, updating him on Salazar’s new location. Since the hotel had been practically flooded by the sprinklers the night before, the Drug Baron had relocated to Hotel La Rioja a little further down the street. Third floor again, suite 314.

He hadn’t seen Q before taking off from the Embassy on his mission to kill Salazar. The young Quartermaster hadn’t left his bedroom and it wasn’t in Bond’s nature to go after him, so he’d just let Q alone.

Everything had been normal on his way to Salazar’s hotel. The busy street outside of the Embassy had been filled with its usual morning traffic, yellow taxis, and black cars with tinted windows belonging to the Embassy, the odd tuk tuk. He had walked through Havana in the rapidly rising morning temperatures and after completing a quick circuit of the hotel, had gone in through the front door, crossing the air conditioned lobby and riding thr elevator to the third floor.

He stayed close to the wall, his trusty Walther PPK/S 9mm short held loosely in his right hand as he circled the third floor. He stayed still for several moments, expecting the prowling lackey to happen upon him at any second. The lackey never appeared. That was when Bond started to get the sense that something was not quite right. Considering what had happened the previous night, Bond would have expected double security, but there was nothing.

Breaking into Salazar’s suite, Bond found more of nothing. Suitcases sat on the bed, untouched. The bed had not been slept in. There was not a soul around. Pulling out his phone, he called Tanner back as he raced from the suite and back down the stairs to the lobby.

“Bill? He’s not here,”

“What do you mean?” Tanner asked. “We have evidence of him booking into La Rioja at one o’clock this morning.”

“His things are there alright,” Bond replied, popping his head into the hotel bar before crossing to the dining room just to check. “But Salazar is not. Not Salazar, not his lackeys. Nobody is here, Tanner.”

Back in Thames House, Bill Tanner rubbed his head in confusion.

“Well where in the bloody hell is he?”

Both the dining room and the bar were empty of Salazar or his henchmen. He hurried out into the car park and scanned it for the black cars with tinted windows that Salazar favoured.

And that was when realisation hit him.

The British Embassy cars had UK licence plates. He had seen black cars outside of the Embassy that morning, but their license plates had not been British. They had been Cuban.

“Bill, he’s going after Q.”

~

The Quartermaster had kept is cool and composure all morning, right up until he slid into the air conditioned Embassy car. He let out a long, shaky sigh and ran both hands through his mass of hair.

 _You twat_ , he thought.

_You complete, utter, massive, insufferable twat! What the fuck were you thinking? Sleeping with Bond? James fucking Bond, the biggest slut that SIS has ever turned out, and you go and shag him. Well fucking done._

Q was furious with himself. He was a big boy and he knew better than to go around sleeping with the double-ohs, the most notorious agents that the service had. They lived on danger, alcohol and sex, and James Bond had the worst reputation of the lot.

Despite this, Q had liked him from the first instant they met. Bond had a dry and self-deprecating sense of humour and they bounced off each other with ease. The banter could probably go on for hours. And damn it, Q worried about him when he was out risking his life for Queen and Country. Q had never met anyone as collected as himself but the previous night, he’d been filled with an almost blind panic when he thought he’d lost Bond, and so much relief when he’d walked through the door, all beaten and bloody.

He pinched his nose between his forefinger and thumb.

It had been adrenaline, that was all. They had both been in the midst of an adrenaline rush and it would never have happened otherwise, and it meant nothing.

His glasses slipped off his nose and with an irritated sigh, he leaned forward to pick them up. It was possibly the only thing that saved his life, as at that instant, there was a shot and glass from the car’s back window shattered, peppering him with razor-sharp shards. Glancing up, he saw a bullet lodged in the headrest in front of him. Exactly where his head had been seconds before.


	7. Chapter 7

Q hunched down as much as possible as his driver swerved violently to avoid the spray of bullets that hit the car.

“Are you alright, sir?” the Agent at the wheel yelled over his shoulder.

“Well, I’m still alive!” Q shouted back. Which in itself was a small miracle. He should be dead. That bullet had come through the window at the exact same second Q had leaned over to retrieve his glasses from the floor.

There was only one bastard that could be behind this. Salazar.

He was thrown to the side as the car was hit on the right side and was shunted over into the next lane. Q chanced a glance up and saw that he and his driver were penned in by three black cars, all with tinted windows. He knew then that he would never make it out alive.

~

Bond didn’t really think of consequences when he went into full double-oh mode. His mission was to get the job done, no matter what. Salazar was after Q and the information that had been lifted from his laptop. The stupid man probably didn’t already realise that his files had already been sent back to London, or if he did, he must be trying to kill Q before he could decrypt the more complicated ones. Either way Bond was going to kill him, and before he got to the Quartermaster.

He hotwired a motorbike in the hotel car park, the engine of the red Ducati Desmosedici RR roaring to life as Bond jumped on it and sped off in the direction of the airport at breakneck speed. He weaved in and out of traffic, ignoring the blaring of horns and screeching of tires as cars swerved or braked to avoid hitting him. If only one of those cars had clipped him, Bond would have been dead, but this wasn’t his main concern. He just knew he had to reach Q before Salazar did.

~

Q was crouched, unarmed, between the side of the car and the central motorway barrier, his brave Secret Service chauffer firing the occasional round from his solitary P99. He would run out soon and then they would both be dead.

The civilians had fled the roads, leaving their cars abandoned as Salazar and his lackeys surrounded Q and the other agent. The Drug Lord was armed with MP7 submachine guns and had superior numbers. Q clutched his leather laptop satchel to his chest and watched as the agent stood to fire another shot. A fatal mistake, as he was hit squarely in the chest by a burst from one of the MP7s which sent him toppling silently backwards, a look of shock frozen onto his face.

A hundred thoughts crossed Q’s mind in the next few seconds. He thought that he was too young to die, that he should never have come to Cuba in the first place. He thought of what his mother’s face would look like when they told her that he had been killed in action and then, finally, he thought of how much of a cock he had been to Bond that morning. He wished he could take it back, that he’d talked to him or acknowledged him instead of just ignoring him. And he was never going to get the chance to apologise for that.

Bullets zipped over his head and Q cringed, strangely calm. He only hoped it would be quick and painless.

And then there was yelling. Panicked yelling in Spanish and bursts of machine gun fire that were not directed at Q, and then the roar of a powerful motorbike engine. Without thinking, Q raised his head above the side of the car.

It was Bond. James fucking Bond, crashing the party on a fire-engine red motorcycle, wearing jeans and wielding his Walther in one hand. It was like a scene from some kind of cheesy action movie, completely ridiculous and unbelievable, but he was there.

Q watched as Bond took down two lackeys in seconds with a head shot to each before the motorcycle screeched to a halt. Bond stooped to retrieve a submachine gun from one of the fallen men as Salazar and his remaining two lackeys ran for the cover of their own cars. Bond’s face was stone as he fired short bursts after them, killing one instantly and stepping over the lifeless corpse. The only lackey left alive now was the one-eared giant Pedro, who turned and leapt at Bond with a terrible cry. A big meaty fist made contact once again with Bond’s already ruined face as the two fell backwards, the machine gun falling from Bond’s grasp.

Pedro was bigger and stronger, but Bond had brought him to his knees before and wasn’t above using the same tactic that he had employed the night before. A well-aimed knee to the large Columbian’s testicles caused the man to release his grip momentarily which allowed Bond to squirm behind him. With one hand on Pedro’s chin and the other on the top of his head, Bond twisted savagely and heard the cervical spine snap. Pedro hung heavy and lifeless in his arms.

And then he heard the telling sound of a handgun being cocked right next to his ear.

Miguel Salazar was standing over him, a Berretta pointed straight at Bond’s temple and a face like thunder. Bond, on his knees, dropped the corpse to the hot tarmac, breathing heavily. There was no sign of Q.

“What have you done with my colleague?” Bond growled. Salazar laughed harshly.

“Most likely dead,” he said triumphantly. Bond’s gut wrenched. He had been too late. Q was lying behind the Embassy car, riddled with bullet holes because Bond had been too late to save him. And he’d never said…he’d never told him…

“I’m going to kill you,” Bond replied through gritted teeth.

“With what? You have no gun. Nada. No hijo, you fuck with Miguel Salazar too many times. Now I kill you.”

Bond’s mind raced through ways that he could get up off his knees and relieve Salazar of his gun but he was coming up blank. It seemed like this was the end for him too. And then he heard a second gun being cocked.

“I don’t think so,” said Q, his voice calm and cool, like he was on the other end of the coms back at Thames House. Bond’s heart leapt. He couldn’t see him from his spot on the hot ground, but Q was standing just behind Salazar, the fallen Agent’s P99 in his hand, pointed at the Columbian’s head. Q had stayed down, knowing better than to get in the way of a double-oh when they were busy taking out the bad guys, but when he had seen Salazar stride across the empty road to a disarmed Bond and put a gun to his head, he had sprung into action.

“You no gonna shoot me hijo,” Salazar said, amused.

“Do you want to bet your life on that?”

Miguel Salazar grinned and opened his mouth to laugh again. It was the last thing he ever did. Q pulled the trigger.

Blood, brain matter and skull fragments peppered the black tarmac, hot and sticky in the mid-day sun. A tiny entrance wound graced one side of his head and a gaping hole appeared on the other as the Drug Baron’s eyes rolled up and he collapsed bonelessly.

Bond slowly raised his head and turned. Q was standing straight, his arm still extended and unwavering, his face like stone. And then suddenly, the enormity of what he had done hit him and Bond saw the mask crack, the hand start to shake and the eyes register horror. He acted fast.

“Hey, it’s okay,” he said gently, pushing himself upright and moving towards Q as though the Quartermaster were a frightened wild animal. Carefully, he twisted the Berretta out of Q’s grasp and threw it away. Q was still staring in horror and revulsion at the lifeless body of Miguel Salazar.

“Hey,” he said again, slightly louder this time. “Look at me. Q, look at me.”

Q turned his head, slowly as though waving from a trance.

“Bond…” he said shakily.

“You’re alright,” Bond replied, cupping Q’s face between his hands. “Come on, let’s get you home.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A/N: This is the end, my only friend, the end!
> 
> Yes, this is the final chapter. It has taken much longer to write this fic than I had originally planned, but I hope you enjoyed it just the same.
> 
> Thank you so much for all the comments and the kudos <3

“How is he, do you think?”

“I honestly don’t know, sir.”

Bond was sitting in M’s office, leaning back in his chair with his right ankle resting lightly on his left knee. M had poured him a generous measure of Scotch and he was currently watching it swirl around in his glass, aware of his superior’s penetrative stare.

The truth was, he really didn’t know how Q was.

They had left Cuba in a hurry, before the authorities could pin them down and detain them for shooting dead five men in the middle of the motorway. They had gone home on separate flights, so the last Bond had seen of the shell shocked Quartermaster was when he herded him calmly towards a departure gate and straightened his tie, brushed the dishevelled dark hair back from the ashen face speckled with cuts from tiny glass shards, and told him that they would see each other on the other side.

That had been three days ago, and to his shame, Bond had been nowhere near Q branch.

“Well, he has an appointment scheduled with the shrink this afternoon, so I suppose we’ll find out then,” M mused and took a sip of his own Scotch.

“Q is a tough nut, sir. I’m sure he’ll be just fine,” Bond replied as mildly as he could. Lies.

“Perhaps,” M said quietly. There was a short pause. “You know, one more kill and I may have to have considered him for double-oh status.”

“I’m not sure he would have thanked you for that, sir.”

It had been a joke on M’s part, but the thought chilled Bond’s blood. He still remembered how Q looked in the seconds after he had spattered Miguel Salazar’s brains all over the hot Havana tarmac. His face had been stone, hard and cold, the stormy sea-green eyes were dead. It had been the face of a killer. A face like Bond’s. And then he had seen it crack and Q came flooding back, pale and shaking and horrified.

Not that he would admit it to a single living soul, but Bond’s first cold-blooded murder had left him trembling and vomiting his guts up until there was nothing left but the acrid taste of bile.

Q was too mild-mannered, too young and too innocent to be messed up in the more ruthless occupations of the SIS, although Bond was sure now that the young Quartermaster had what it took. But he would die before seeing Q living the life he led. It was no kind of proper life for anyone.

“No, probably not,” agreed M. “He’s much more valuable where he is anyway.”

The Head of Operations knocked back the remainder of the Scotch and straightened up in his seat.

“Right, I’ve got stuff to do, so be a good lad and bugger off.”

“Yes, sir,” replied Bond, finishing his drink just as quickly and pushing himself into a standing position.

“Oh and Bond? Stop by Q Branch and check on him before you leave.”

~

“Are you going to loiter all day, 007? Or was there actually something you wanted?” Q asked coolly, without even lifting his head from whatever trinket he was fiddling with.

Bond had been watching him silently from the doorway for five minutes now, wondering how best to initiate conversation and coming up blank. Q was much more at home in this kind of environment, those long delicate fingers working swiftly and accurately, his face paler than usual but the same blank expression he always wore when he was working. A couple of times, Bond had wondered if he should just turn and walk away, but then he would be disobeying a direct order. And he really owed Q a conversation.

“Actually, yes,” Bond replied, pushing himself from the doorframe and crossing the space to Q’s desk. “I came to see how you were doing.”

“You’re three days late,” Q answered calmly.

“I know,” Bond murmured, sitting lightly on the edge of Q’s desk. Still, the young Quartermaster did not look at him. “How are you?”

“Honestly? Not fantastic,” Q told him, his fingers working fast. “I don’t sleep. And if I do somehow manage to drop off, I dream about it. I see it when I’m awake. When I close my eyes, all I see is blood and brain and bone spraying everywhere…”

Q stopped working, dropping the small device sharply as he squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. Bond instinctively raised his hand to place it gently on Q’s shoulder but it was instantly shrugged off.

“You don’t have to do that,” Q said, regaining his composure swiftly and picking up his device again to continue working. Bond frowned.

“Do what?”

“Keep up any kind of pretence for my benefit,” Q replied, his voice barely above a whisper. The grey-green eyes were once again fixated on the tiny piece of equipment in his long-fingered hands. “I understand that it was all a one-time thing.”

And then Bond understood. The revelation was like the sun shining through the clouds after a storm. The reason for Q’s flakiness was because of what had happened in Havana. Not his cold-blooded killing of the Columbian Drug Baron, but because of that night between the Quartermaster and himself. The night where Q had saved Bond’s life the first time, the night where Q had practically ran across the room to greet him only to swiftly abort what had undoubtedly been an embrace. The night where they had kissed and caressed, entangled themselves in each other’s limbs. The night where Q had pulled Bond to him and asked him to stay.

Bond got it. He was a ‘love them and leave them’ kind of man and always had been. Until he had met Vesper Lynd. He would have given up everything for Vesper. He did give up everything for her. And when she died his heart had grown cold once more and he had gone back to what he did best.

There were a lot of things that were oddly Vesper-like in Q. They were both tall and dark, they both held themselves with confidence and grace. Like Vesper, Q was intelligent and sharp-witted and generally unfazed by whatever Bond threw at him. But it was more than just the remarkable similarities. Because Q was his own person. He drank Earl Gray from a Scrabble mug and wore ridiculous but expensive cardigans and equally ridiculous oversized glasses. His hair always looked a mess and he was afraid of flying. A far cry from the smart and polished Vesper.

Bond loved everything about him.

“It wasn’t a one-time thing,” he confessed, his eyes fixed on the wall ahead of him. “Not for me.”

He heard the small device clatter back onto the table and registered movement from the corner of his eye as Q turned his head sharply.

“Don’t play games with me, 007,” Q said coldly.

“I’m not,” Bond replied, tearing his eyes away from the wall and turning his face towards Q. “Not with you.”

Bond reached out and covered one of Q’s hands with his own. He watched as the mask of cool professionalism slipped away, eyes turning bright and hopeful. And then, without a thought to where they were or who might be watching, Q turned to face him, flung both arms around Bond’s neck and kissed him for all he was worth.

~

Bond’s mouth was as soft and wet as Q remembered, tongue just as teasing, the teeth that nipped at his bottom lip just as tantalising. As Bond stood and wrapped his arms around Q’s skinny frame, he could almost feel the calloused palms on his bare skin despite his layers of cardigan and shirt.

He had convinced himself completely that Cuba had been one big mistake and it had made him thoroughly miserable. He’d forced himself to lose the only thing that could have blocked out the horrible mental image of himself shooting Miguel Salazar in the head.

Now, relief flooded through him so fast it made his knees weak, And when Bond murmured his name, Q’s real name, against his lips, Q fell apart completely. He didn’t want to let him go, and he didn’t care that they were right in the middle of SIS Headquarters.

A sharp deliberate cough startled them both, and despite Q’s thoughts just seconds before, his arms dropped immediately from around Bond’s neck and Bond let go of him just as quickly. They both stood there, arms clamped to their sides and guilty looks on their faces at they turned to find Bill Tanner standing in the doorway to Q’s office, his face blank and a paper folder tucked under his arm.

Tanner ignored Bond completely, simply turning to Q and saying, “It’s time for your assessment, Quartermaster,”

Q fought the flush that was creeping across his cheeks and his neck and simply nodded and took a step forward only to have his hand caught by Bond who pulled him close again.

“Tell them everything,” Bond murmured in his ear. “Everything you need to. Don’t hold anything back because the more you tell them, they more they have to work with and the faster they can help you get rid of these dreams.”

Q raised an eyebrow.

“That sounds a lot like advice that you wouldn’t follow, 007.”

“I think everyone knows that I’m beyond psychological help,” Bond quipped and gave Q’s hand a final squeeze before letting him go.

Bill Tanner was silent and blank-faced as Q followed him through Thames House to the assessment room. Q had been grinning too much to himself to notice the warning look that Tanner had thrown in Bond’s direction as they left.

They twisted and turned, down stairs and along corridors until Tanner finally stopped at a very unassuming white door. They looked at each other for a second, Tanner’s hand on the door handle until he finally spoke.

“I know it’s none of my business,” Tanner said, his voice and face quite neutral. “And I know that you’re going through a tough time right now. But Bond has an uncanny habit of destroying everything that he touches, and I’m saying that as the man’s friend. Just…don’t get too close.”

Q bit his lip. Tanner had known Bond since the double-oh had started his MI6 career and was his biggest advocate, defending him to every M that had presided over operations. The man knew what he was talking about. But Q knew that it was futile.

“I think it’s already a little too late for that,” he replied softly.

Tanner looked at him carefully for a few more seconds before saying “Fair enough,” and opened the door.

Q took a deep breath and walked though, ready to confess his sins.

But not all of them. There were some he was going to keep to himself.


End file.
